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Public Molestation of A Woman

By Oyindamola Thomas

A dirty
drama played out during a bus ride to Victoria Island on Thursday. I noticed
how a lady who sat at the extreme on the same seat as me, got so uncomfortable
by what I didn’t initially know that she kept adjusting her sitting position.
At some point, with stern looks on her face, she sounded a note of warning to a man who sat directly behind her on the
last seat. "Please stop making me uncomfortable with your hand coming so close," she said.

As the bus
continued in the ‘bumper to bumper’ traffic situation, the lady who couldn’t
bear what was happening to her just shouted “Please keep your hand to yourself.
I wonder why you have decided to rest your hand on my buttocks!”

Acting as
if nothing had happened the man looked away and pretended to be on his phone.
But that was not going to be the last of his try. Next step, he placed his head on the backrest of the seat in front
and tried his luck again without knowing that I had fixed my eyes on the
direction of his hand, just as did the other passengers who occupied the last seat
with him.

Again, the
man moved his hand quietly and rested it on the lady’s buttocks attempting to
make a squeeze when thunderous voices descended on him,” Eh! So this was why
you entered this bus, just to come and squeeze women on their backsides?” But
before he could utter a word, the lady landed him a dirty slap on the face.
“Let us drag him down and serve him good beating” suggested one of the
passengers. “But that could result to another killing from a mob action”, said
another passenger.

At this point confusion had set in as blows
and knocks were flying from different passengers, forcing the bus driver to
pull over beside the Federal Palace Hotel. As the man in question was being
dragged out of the bus and everyone following, I noticed that there had been a
thin slit from something like a razor blade across the lady’s dress. I raised
the alarm immediately and behold when a check was done, a razor blade was found
on the floor of the bus right where the man had sat.

Sweating
like someone confined inside an oven, the man could only plead for forgiveness,
crying that “it was handiwork of the devil.”Poor lady, her pain was now how to manage herself in a destroyed dress
that exposed her underwear.There was
not much that I could do, but to share in her shame and pain. I had to walk down the road with her to link Kofo Abayomi, which was her destination. Ofcourse, the guy found the nearest escape route.

Afterall, he claimed it was 'the devil's handiwork'. What do you think?